It’s sunny in Brisbane, so why is a wall of water coming?

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It’s sunny in Brisbane, so why is a wall of water coming?

12/01/2011 3:00am

> From the WeatherWatch archives

Many parts of Brisbane continue to go underwater this afternoon even though sunnier conditions have moved in. Despite the forecast for much drier weather in the city over the next 48 hours the flood waters are only going to get worse.

WeatherWatch.co.nz head weather analyst Philip Duncan says the flooding in Brisbane is quite different to the flooding in Toowoomba yesterday. “The flooding in Toowoomba was a result of a localised down burst in the area. A huge volume of rain fell over a small area in a short time – which is why we saw streams turning into raging rivers in a matter of minutes”.

Mr Duncan says Brisbane is facing a different flood altogether. “What Brisbane is being hit by is heavy rain that fell upstream over the past five days, and in particular the past 48 hours. The Wivenhoe Dam blocks the Brisbane River about 80kms west of Brisbane and it is massive rainfall in this catchment that is causing the delayed flooding in Brisbane”.

Figures by the Bureau of Meteorology show an incredible amount of rain has fallen around the lake.

“Well over 100mm of rain had already fallen around the lake since Friday, but yesterday an incredible further 249mm fell in just 24 hours. This wall of water is now being released by the dam and is heading towards Brisbane” says Mr Duncan.

A total of 370mm of rain has fallen in the area in just five days.

Brisbane itself has received much less – but has still received a significant amount. On Monday the city recorded 111mm in just 24 hours, which may be a record breaker for January.

Up until 12noon NZT Brisbane had recorded a total of 270.8mm of rain – the average for January is 101.5mm.

Brisbane looks set to have its wettest January on record.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz, with figures via weatherzone.com.au

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Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 12 Jan 2011.

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AmandaBerry35 on 24/12/2011 7:22am

It is understandable that money makes us disembarrass. But how to act when someone has no money? The one way is to try to get the mortgage loans or auto loan.

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Ken Ring on 13/01/2011 12:25am

Looks environmentalist policies have directly contributed to the sudden tsunami into the Brisbane river system. Because there are two dams Wivenhoe and Somerset, which are not designed to be over-full, the construction of another, the Traveston Dam, was proposed in 2009 under the Labour government to stop future floods from devastating Brisbane, but the plan was knocked back by greenie politicians Garrett, Brown and Rudd, on the grounds that it might hurt the environment. See
http://www.twawki.com/?p=10563 Garrett.
So yesterday they had to release water from the over-full Wivenhoe Dam, on top of flood-water already there, to save Wivenhoe from bursting. Seems these guys put their own political careers ahead of the safety of the city of Brisbane.
We can see it in NZ. The reason why the Waikato no longer floods as it used to every year, is because it now has dams all along it. The river levels are adjusted down throughout the year to keep it even so that massive rains and kingtides, when they do occur, aren’t as destructive.

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